Barisha raid

The Barisha raid was an American Delta Force operation which occurred on the night of 26 October 2019 during the Syrian Civil War, targeting the leadership of the Islamic State. The raid resulted in the death of the self-proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a massive blow to the declining insurgent group.

Background
In October 2019, President of the United States Donald Trump controversially announced that, amid a Turkish invasion of northern Syria, the United States would withdraw its remaining military forces from Syria, thereby abandoning their Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces allies. Around the same time, Trump authorized a raid which had the purpose of assassinating the fugitive leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; he claimed that the two decisions were unrelated. The operation had been delayed a month due to the Turkish invasion, as the SDF - who had gathered the intel - were forced to deal with both the Turkish invaders and escaped Islamic State prisoners who rejoined the insurgency.

Raid
On the night of 26 October 2019, eight US helicopters carrying Delta Force teams took off from a military base near Erbil, Iraq and approached an insurgent compound near Barisha on the Syria-Turkey border in northern Idlib Governorate, where Baghdadi was rumored to be. The helicopters were met with hostile fire as they approached the compound, but the Delta Force commandos were inserted and blew open the walls of the compound with explosives, bypassing the booby-trapped door. The special operations forces killed senior IS leader Abu Yamaan and two women, and they then pursued Baghdadi into a tunnel complex. Baghdadi took three of his children with him as he fled into the tunnel, and, upon reaching a dead end while being pursued by Delta Force operatives and their service dogs, he detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and the three children and causing the tunnel to collapse. A total of 9 people were killed in the operation, while the Americans had no casualties.

Aftermath
At 9:00 AM on 27 October 2019, Trump officially addressed the nation and shared the details of the operation, which he had previously hinted at with a cryptic Tweet the night before. He claimed that Baghdadi "died like a dog" and like "a coward", and Baghdadi's death was celebrated across the West. Also on 27 October, IS' official spokesman Abul-Hasan al-Muhajir was killed in another operation in Jarabulus in northwest Syria, while Abdullah Qardash was named the new Caliph, having been proclaimed Baghdadi's successor in August 2019. Not all of the reactions were positive, however, as France was put on high alert due to fears about IS revenge attacks.